A Final Stand
by Yen mi Eruion
Summary: A brief scene where Gellert Grindelwald is confronted by Albus Dumbledore and a Muggle woman helping him.


"The stage is set," Gellert murmured to himself, surveying the scene before him. The carnage had been what some would call brutal, but what he called necessary; he had arrived back in London on schedule, but had once again been cornered by the authorities of the Ministry. Only this time, it had not gone quite as he'd anticipated; he'd lost the rest of his followers, who were now, by the sound of it, battling Ministry officials out on the steps of the Westminster building of the British muggle's Parliament. He had given all the slip, or so he'd thought; now, there were only two individuals before him, and both came as something of a shock.

"Albus," he greeted, nodding to Albus Dumbledore, who stood, wand at the ready, on his left. To his right, he might as well have been looking at a ghost: a thin, wan figure with pale blonde hair, her expression almost ghostly in itself. At a thorough glance, she was distinctly different; the eyes were another color, the nose turned up, the chin broader; but in that eerie, half-light of evening, he may as well have been staring at a portrait of Ariana Dumbledore. But she held no wand, nor did she hold herself as if she ever had; was this girl a muggle? Why was she with Albus, especially with no protection?

"Your companions are fighting a losing war," he said, still speaking to Albus. "If you must join the muggles, you will only die with them."

"Gellert, please." There was urgency in Albus's voice as he lowered his wand. "It doesn't have to be this way."

"This is already the way things are," Gellert stated. "To resist it is only to fuel its progress."

"Gellert, think about what you're saying," Albus begged, going so far as to set his wand on the ground. "This is about more than just our world."

Gellert remained motionless. "I understand that; I intend to do what I can to protect both. And this _is_ the only way to do just that."

Albus took a step forward, leaving his wand behind him. "Gellert, you're wrong about them. You can't treat them like animals; not even when they treat each other like them."

"I have never seen them as inhuman," Gellert said evenly. "They are not fully evolved, but they are undoubtedly sentient; they have feelings, lives, love, just as all of us do. But they will never reach their fullest potential without our help."

The girl took three slow steps forward, passing Albus and crossing to stand between them, directly in front of Gellert's wand. Her face was deathly calm, but there was some strong emotion burning in her eyes.

"Eleanor, no!"

Albus made a snatch at her, as if to drag her back. Gellert was faster; with a flick of his wand, he Immobilized Albus, trying to ignore the look of absolute betrayal now frozen on his face. Turning back to the girl, he asked, "What is your part in all this, Muggle?"

She dropped her gaze, shaking her head. "I'm no one significant," she said in an American accent. "My name is Eleanor Thompson. I'm part of the American diplomacy council; I was only working in London, and I happened to bump into him on a job." She nodded to Albus, who seemed to be pouring anguish from his very soul into the gaze which was riveted on her. "He's a good man," she said to Gellert, as if this were new to him. "He cares a lot about you."

"I am aware of his business," said Gellert soberly. "I was asking about yours."

Eleanor cast one last look of something at Albus, then took a breath or two before proceeding. "I know I'm not like you, and that will affect how you see me, but I only have one thing to say." Looking up, she met his gaze. "I know we muggles don't have the greatest reputation among you wizards; it _was_ us, who started the Great War with our machines and new inventions and all that. But there's something you have to understand: this war was never finished. We didn't end it the way we should have; we pointed fingers, blamed smaller groups of people for big disasters, but we never fixed what we broke." She swallowed, then continued with an effort, "The way things are now are not the way they should be, and there are certain things that the way we ended the first War that shouldn't be the way they are now, and should never have come to be this way at all; and the only way to fix some of those things is to finish what was already begun."

Gellert pondered her words, watching as tears began shimmering in her eyes; her mind and heart were apparently very clear to her. "Some of the things you are dreading from this next War are already happening," she went on, her voice taking a new edge. "There are new political groups rising on the continent, claiming to carry the solution for all the problems going on there; people who have openly opposed them have started disappearing. There are Jewish families from the countryside in Germany, Austria, and Poland who are disappearing as well; one of the parties of Germany has taken a stance specifically in opposition to them. In the East, too, Japan has started making advances on the coast; much of this was being planned out before the Great War even began. _It's not over_, and all the resistance you're trying to provide us with isn't going to help us or stop this from happening. We _have_ to see this through, or it will continue to fester like this for the rest of time to come."

Albus's face was desperate; obviously, he had spent enough time with this woman to become deeply attached to her. That had always been a fault of Albus's; developing deep personal attachments to the weak, who so often disappointed, died, or abandoned him later on.

Pausing to wipe her eyes on her coat sleeve, Eleanor raised her head, her eyes clear and bright. "This is my world's curse," she said steadily. "But not yours. Your people have the advantage; you can protect yourselves from this, you and all your families. You can get underground, hide, just wait it out until it's all over; because there _will_ be an end, because these wars never last very long. But… we _have_ to finish this." A look of despair and, surprisingly, rage settled over her becalmed features. "The Great War opened the biggest power vacuum in the world for the first person with influence to step into; it's Napoleon over again, only ten times bigger. But once it's over, our children and grandchildren will learn and remember what happened to us, and _they'll_ be able to build lives on a firm foundation we didn't know how to use. And maybe––" She said this not quite hopefully, "––one day, all of this will never have to happen to anyone again. Not on this scale, anyway," she added.

Gellert could see beads of sweat standing out on Albus's forehead, as if he were trying to physically beat back the Immobility spell. Meanwhile, Eleanor had dropped her eyes again, breathing a small sigh, either of resignation or relief. "That's all I have to say," she said quietly, closing her eyes.

Gellert nodded, raising his wand; at least she knew she had willingly come to meet her death. As he pointed the end of it at her heart, she bowed her head, hands clenching slightly, bracing herself for the end. The effect of this demeanor suddenly made her look much more like Ariana than she already had…

Gellert raised his arm to deliver the Killing Curse when something caught the tail of his eye that demanded his head to turn. Albus was now looking at him, his blue eyes wide and straining as if they meant to pull out of his head. It wasn't just sweat gleaming on Albus's cheek now; tears threatened to breach the banks of those blue pools as they stared helplessly at Gellert's raised hand.

From somewhere outside came the sound of a loud crash; the floor shook with the noise. In that split second, Gellert made his final decision; reaching out, he seized Eleanor by the arm, then spun on his heel and Disapparated.

Evidently, Eleanor had never yet had the experience of Apparating anywhere before; once they reappeared, she gasped and fell to her knees, where she sat panting for several moments. They were now standing on a grassy hilltop, with the white cliffs of Dover now before them; the cry of the gulls and the surge of the sea far below was now the only sound to be heard.

Shakily, Eleanor rose to her feet, staring around in amazement. "What…?"

"I preferred a more secluded location," was Gellert's monotonous explanation. He kept his eyes on a point far out to sea, but he could feel Eleanor looking at him.

They said nothing for some time, but presently, the shadow of a smile stole over Eleanor's face. "You won't do it in front of him. You still love him."

Gellert did not reply, staring fixedly out at the horizon. He had no knowledge or concern with how much of his life Albus may have shared with this woman, nor what ominous tales he may have told her of himself. He could admit a muggle to be right when they were, but it was no more than he would do, even had she been a witch herself.

Eleanor took a minute to gaze about at the surrounding countryside. "It's beautiful," she sighed, smiling fully at last; she closed her eyes, drinking in the salty wind. Gellert took a step back as she stretched out her arms, her sleeves flapping in the wind like the wings of a bird. "I will say," she said at length, "I do respect you."

"And I, you," Gellert answered, and pointed his wand at the base of her skull.


End file.
